Honouring each of these parties, as she severally addressed them, with an acid smile, Miss Charity presented Mr. Moddle.
“I believe you have seen him before,” she pleasantly observed. “Augustus, my sweet child, bring me a chair.”
The sweet child did as he was told; and was then about to retire into a corner to mourn in secret, when Miss Charity, calling him in an audible whisper a “little pet,” gave him leave to come and sit beside her. It is to be hoped, for the general cheerfulness of mankind, that such a doleful little pet was never seen as Mr. Moddle looked when he complied. So despondent was his temper, that he showed no outward thrill of ecstasy when Miss Pecksniff placed her lily hand in his, and concealed this mark of her favour from the vulgar gaze by covering it with a corner of her shawl. Indeed, he was infinitely more rueful then than he had been before; and, sitting uncomfortably upright in his chair, surveyed the company with watery eyes, which seemed to say, without the aid of language, “Oh, good gracious! look here! Won’t some kind Christian help me!”
But the ecstasies of Mrs. Gamp were sufficient to have furnished forth a score of young lovers; and they were chiefly awakened by the sight of Tom Pinch and his sister. Mrs. Gamp was a lady of that happy temperament which can be ecstatic without any other stimulating cause than a general desire to establish a large and profitable connection. She added daily so many strings to her bow, that she made a perfect harp of it; and upon that instrument she now began to perform an extemporaneous concerto.
“Why, goodness me!” she said, “Mrs. Chuzzlewit! To think as I should see beneath this blessed ouse, which well I know it, Miss Pecksniff, my sweet young lady, to be a ouse as there is not a many like, worse luck, and wishin’ it were not so, which then this tearful walley would be changed into a flowerin’ guardian, Mr. Chuffey; to think as I should see beneath this indiwidgle roof, identically comin’, Mr. Pinch (I take the liberty, though almost unbeknown), and do assure you of it, sir, the smilinest and sweetest face as ever, Mrs. Chuzzlewit, I see exceptin’ yourn, my dear good lady, and your good lady’s too, sir, Mr. Moddle, if I may make so bold as speak so plain of what is plain enough to them as needn’t look through millstones, Mrs. Todgers, to find out wot is wrote upon the wall behind. Which no offence is meant, ladies and gentlemen; none bein’ took, I hope. To think as I should see that smilinest and sweetest face which me and another friend of mine, took notice of among the packages down London Bridge, in this promiscous place, is a surprige indeed!”
Having contrived, in this happy manner, to invest every member of her audience with an individual share and immediate personal interest in her address, Mrs. Gamp dropped several curtseys to Ruth, and smilingly shaking her head a great many times, pursued the thread of her discourse:
“Now, ain’t we rich in beauty this here joyful arternoon, I’m sure. I knows a lady, which her name, I’ll not deceive you, Mrs. Chuzzlewit, is Harris, her husband’s brother bein’ six foot three, and marked with a mad bull in Wellington boots upon his left arm, on account of his precious mother havin’ been worrited by one into a shoemaker’s shop, when in a sitiwation which blessed is the man as has his quiver full of sech, as many times I’ve said to Gamp when words has roge betwixt us on account of the expense—and often have I said to Mrs. Harris, ‘Oh, Mrs. Harris, ma’am! your countenance is quite a angel’s!’ Which, but for Pimples, it would be. ‘No, Sairey Gamp,’ says she, ‘you best of hardworking and industrious creeturs as ever was underpaid at any price, which underpaid you are, quite diff’rent. Harris had it done afore marriage at ten and six,’ she says, ‘and wore it faithful next his heart ’till the colour run, when the money was declined to be give back, and no arrangement could be come to. But he never said it was a angel’s, Sairey, wotever he might have thought.’ If Mrs. Harris’s husband was here now,” said Mrs. Gamp, looking round, and chuckling as she dropped a general curtsey, “he’d speak out plain, he would, and his dear wife would be the last to blame him! For if ever a woman lived as know’d not wot it was to form a wish to pizon them as had good looks, and had no reagion give her by the best of husbands, Mrs. Harris is that ev’nly dispogician!”
With these words the worthy woman, who appeared to have dropped in to take tea as a delicate little attention, rather than to have any engagement on the premises in an official capacity, crossed to Mr. Chuffey, who was seated in the same corner as of old, and shook him by the shoulder.
“Rouge yourself, and look up! Come!” said Mrs. Gamp. “Here’s company, Mr. Chuffey.”
“I am sorry for it,” cried the old man, looking humbly round the room. “I know I’m in the way. I ask pardon, but I’ve nowhere else to go to. Where is she?”
Merry went to him.
“Ah!” said the old man, patting her on the check. “Here she is. Here she is! She’s never hard on poor old Chuffey. Poor old Chuff!”
As she took her seat upon a low chair by the old man’s side, and put herself within the reach of his hand, she looked up once at Tom. It was a sad look that she cast upon him, though there was a faint
